A TV builder who starred in the BBC programme ‘Cowboy Trap’ is embroiled in a £500,000 court fight with a millionaire widow.
Paul Shanahan, one of the ‘good guys’ on the property rescue show, is facing claims his company left Dr Zohor Aylwin’s £1.2million Watford house with a workman’s “boot print” in paintwork.
The company, Greystoke Builders Ltd, is denying what it says are “alleged but unsubstantiated defects” – and demanding £50,000 in unpaid bills for the work.
African studies academic Dr Aylwin claims workers left multiple defects behind after a £100,000 revamp in 2019.
These allegedly include a toilet that wouldn’t flush and a shower too short to stand under.
Mr Shanahan was personally engaged in the renovation works at Dr Aylwin’s home and had also negotiated the contract and “scope of works”, Mayors and City County Court heard.
The case has run up £460,000 in lawyers’ bills.
Greystoke managing director Shanahan played a key role during nine episodes of the BBC’s ‘Cowboy Trap’.
He was called in to salvage ‘disasters’ and botched jobs done by rogue operators.
In online promotional material for Greystoke, Shanahan describes “working with BBC1 as the good guys on the Cowboy Trap – going in and rectifying the disasters previous builders have left”.
But now his company is in a legal fight with widow and Moroccan culture expert Dr Aylwin.
The case began when Shanahan’s company sued Dr Aylwin for unpaid invoices totalling about £50,000.
She then sued the company in return over an alleged series of defects in the work.
Dr Aylwin’s barrister, Ashley Pratt, told Judge Nicholas Parfitt KC that she has a number of complaints about the quality of the revamp.
These include the cost of replacing a boiler and sub-standard paintwork including one surface being marked with a “boot print of the company’s employee”, the court heard.
There were also problems with the newly fitted Howden’s kitchen, and a toilet that failed to flush, it is claimed.
“The shower was clearly too short to fit under and was clearly unsuitable,” the barrister said.
He also claimed there were “fittings defects for the dishwasher”.
There were also problems with the kitchen electrics, defective tiles in an en-suite bedroom, and “gross over-charging” when installing sliding doors in a bedroom, it is claimed.
Dr Aylwin says there were multiple defects in the work done which effectively “extinguish” the building company’s £50,200 bill.
The invoicing and estimate process was nothing short of shambolic
Ashley Pratt
Her barrister further claimed that even on Greystoke’s best case the debt owing would only amount to £44,000.
It is also alleged the company did not prepare a proper contract or operate a coherent invoicing system.
“The invoicing and estimate process was nothing short of shambolic,” the barrister told the court.
But Greystoke’s lawyer, Paul Fisher, denied there was evidence of the defects alleged.
He spoke of the north London company’s “many years experience undertaking work of the nature undertaken at the property”.
He told the judge: “Indeed one of the company’s witnesses and directors, Mr Paul Shanahan, worked as an expert on the BBC television programme ‘Cowboy Trap’.”
He added: “His team sought to rectify and compete works in residential homes initially undertaken by ‘cowboy’ builders.”
Mr Fisher said the company took on the project in 2019, with Mrs Aylwin’s son, Idris, overseeing the project for his parents.
Greystoke had sent a series of invoices to the Aylwin family, said Mr Fisher, receiving just over £67,000 and leaving – the builders say – a £50,200 shortfall.
The company claims the right to recover its £50,200 debt – or alternatively is asking the judge to assess what is due.
“The defects alleged by the defendants do not come close to a sum that would set off or nullify the total debt claimed by the claimant,” he told the judge.
Greystoke insists its team did their utmost to carry out a successful overhaul of Dr Aylwin’s home.
Costly court action
Mr Fisher highlighted expert evidence suggesting that “the property had not been maintained to a very high standard prior to the claimant undertaking its works”.
The barrister said the decor was in “visibly poor pre-existing condition”.
He added that the previous poorly finished paintwork “clearly had an impact on the visual appearance of the claimant’s works”.
Mr Fisher labelled the case a “relatively simple debt claim which has spiralled out of control by virtue of alleged but unsubstantiated defects that have been raised by the defendants”.
As a result, he said the relatively small-scale debt dispute has mushroomed into a three-day court action involving expert witnesses and with total legal costs projected at around £460,000.
Whoever loses will be left more than £500,000 out of pocket.
The judge has now reserved his decision in the case.
